Heavily armed soldiers, tanks and helicopters, what was going on in Luque, Paraguay? The Fifa circus was in town and even the showrunner himself didn’t bother to be there on time.
By Sam Kunti
Even an army helicopter had been deployed, with a rifle-wielding soldier leaning out to survey the scene below.
Under the scorching sun, footballers of all ages took part in a kickabout in Luque, on the outskirts of Asunción, Paraguay. Kaká featured in Fifa’s team, New Zealand’s Ryan Nelsen defended Oceania and on the sidelines, Arsène Wenger – the former Arsenal manager turned Fifa’s poster boy/chief of global football development – watched on. In the end, host confederation Conmebol defeated Paraguay 1-0 with a spot kick from Juan Román Riquelme.
Outside the media entrance, two soldiers with huge rifles stood guard. Across the road from the legends match, private security patrolled the entrance of the Gran Bourbon hotel, Fifa’s main accommodation during its 75th congress. A tank-flanked roadblock regulated access to the hotel where earlier that morning, military trucks had dropped off dozens of soldiers at the doorstep.
In the lead-up to the congress, Paraguay had been on high alert for days. President Santiago Peña, head of the ruling Colorado Party, called it the largest international event ever held in the country. Paraguay has been a democracy since 1989, following the fall of longtime dictator Alfredo Stroessner, who came to power in a 1954 military coup. The family of Conmebol president Alejandro Domínguez had close business and family ties to Stroessner’s brutal regime. Today, the Colorado Party controls Paraguayan politics to such an extent that the country’s democratic character is often called into question.
On Domínguez and the Stroessner connection, read Welcome to Conmeboland and A Family Affair
Despite holding power for decades, the party’s policies have done little to improve the lives of ordinary citizens. The minimum monthly wage remains just 2.8 million guaraníes—about 351 dollars.
By comparison, a Fifa congress is a multi-million dollar spectacle: Their annual report notes that in 2024, travel and accommodation expenses for delegates attending the congress in Bangkok, Thailand, totalled 19.6 million dollars — less than the 24.5 million dollars spent the previous year for the congress in Kigali, Rwanda. The 2025 budget for Congress and committees was set at 26 million dollars.
Fifa’s bubble was impervious. Never had a congress been so militarised. Soldiers protected every hotel housing delegates. Tanks and military vehicles lined the streets of Luque. Local media reported that 5,000 security personnel had been deployed to safeguard the congress. A sense of oppression took hold: Luque was a city under siege.
So what was happening that required these extraordinary security measures and scared the local population?
Fortress Bourbon
A lot by Fifa’s own admission. The Bourbon, where the Fifa council and senior officials stayed, became a fortress. Journalists were barred from entering the lobby freely, it required an appointment with a guest. It’s a strategy the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has long applied and prevents journalists from carrying out their role of reporting. It was a first and a new low for Fifa whose figurehead Gianni Infantino has long disliked the media. Accountable to no one, the Fifa president once again declined to stage a post-congress press conference. At his last full-fledged press conference in Kigali in 2023, Infantino asked the media: “Why are you so mean?”
Soldiers and tanks guarding downtown Luque.
Why were the media not welcome in Gran Bourbon? What did Fifa want the rest of the world not to know? Those pertinent questions were left unanswered by Christian Akamp, Fifa’s director of services. He told Martyn Ziegler, the chief sports reporter of The Times, to depart the hotel lobby based on the technicality that the Bourbon was a venue and subject to security. According to Ziegler, who first covered a Fifa congress in 1998 in Paris, the audacious command was unprecedented.
In the lobby, Fifa’s minders tracked journalists like hawks – even bathroom breaks were monitored. Josimar had been chatting with Randy Harris, a new Fifa council member from Barbados. From behind round sunglasses, Harris burst out in laughter when asked for his opinion about US president Donald Trump and then offered ‘no comment’. This innocuous conversation left Fifa’s media relations team on edge. Josimar was promptly escorted out of the building.
Supreme Leader
This has become the norm for an organisation that – under Infantino – claims to operate transparently. A Swiss lawyer, Infantino sat on a panel to reform Fifa and implement good governance in an organisation that was reeling from FifaGate. When he rose to power in 2016, those reforms quickly unravelled. Infantino became a supreme leader, who consolidated his power – Blatter-style – by handing out money and by promising ever more of it.
That leadership style has destroyed accountability at Fifa.
Josimar presented Fifa’s media department with a series of questions: Can Fifa disclose who – and how – pays for the Fifa president’s use of a Qatari private jet? Infantino is a leading polluter of the skies, having travelled by conservative estimate – more than 600,000 kilometres – between 2021 and the summer of 2024.
Can Fifa explain why the Qatar legacy fund does not benefit migrant workers in the Gulf Nation? Fifa ignored the recommendation of its own subcommittee for human rights and social responsibility to compensate migrant workers and, in an act of bluewashing, steered the 50 million dollars of the legacy fund toward social programmes of the UN, as well as the WTO. Can Fifa disclose the rentals of the Fifa president around the world that Fifa pays for?
Having moved from Doha to Miami, Infantino has apartments at his disposal in Paris and Zug, a tax haven near Zurich. Can Fifa disclose the minutes of the council meetings? Can Fifa disclose how much Fifa paid to BDO as a consultant on the 2034 World Cup bidding process? Can Fifa share the audited accounts of the 211 member associations’ development money?
Fifa failed to reply. The world governing body rarely provides a meaningful answer.
Major decisions – such as the award of the 2034 World Cup and launching the Club World Cup, backed by money from Saudi-linked DAZN – have often been taken behind closed doors, then rubber-stamped by the Fifa council.
You can imagine the scene: the supreme leader stroking his bald head, smirking as he concocts the future of the game in his image before instructing Mattias Grafström, Fifa’s secretary general, on what to do. The council members undergo Infantino’s machinations in absolute subservience. They are richly rewarded: Council members who are vice presidents, amass an annual compensation of 300,000 dollars; regular members get 250,000 dollars.
Just stand up, Johnny
But not even such figures could appease the deep discontent among some council members and European delegates over Infantino’s latest stunt: arriving late at Fifa’s own congress. He had toured the Middle East with US president Donald Trump. In Saudi Arabia, the Fifa president enjoyed a seat next to crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman, a more prominent spot than Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state. From behind the lectern, Trump explained that Infantino delivered the World Cup to Saudi Arabia, contradicting Fifa’s claims that the award followed due process. “Just stand up, Johnny,” said Trump.
Previously, at the White House Task Force for the 2026 World Cup, the US president described the football official as “like somebody that just woke up on Christmas morning as a young child and saw those toys under the tree.”
Infantino enjoyed the limelight in the Middle East. He was also a guest at a banquet offered by the Emir of Qatar in Lusail where Argentina two and a half years ago became 2022 world champions following a spectacular 3-3 final against France at a tournament overshadowed by the plight of migrant workers.
Could the Fifa president reach Luque in time for the congress? In the middle of the Paraguayan night, two private jets of Qatar Executive were spotted landing in Lagos, Nigeria: QE205 and QE890. The jets were never going to reach Luque on time for the start of the congress. Earlier in the week, QE890 had flown out of Johannesburg, South Africa, the home country of CAF president Patrice Motsepe.
Congress delegates received an e-mail from Fifa explaining that “due to unforeseen circumstances” a new delay was required. The congress had been scheduled to start at 09:30 before it was first delayed to 10:30 and then in the morning itself, postponed again to 12:30. Infantino made Paraguay’s head of state and hundreds of delegates wait.
The congress descended into a farce: Bruno Chiemento got elected as chair of the Governance, Audit and Compliance Committee. Together with Alejandro Domínguez and Mukul Mudgal, he decides Infantino’s compensation package. Grafström, meanwhile, shut down Palestine’s attempt to address illegal Israeli settlement clubs. Why had delegates flown halfway across the world for a congress with no real agenda?
At the interval, Europe’s eight council members walked out in a coordinated protest. Uefa president Aleksander Čeferin, Razvan Burleanu, Pascal Van Damme, Bernd Neuendorf, Debbie Hewitt, Sandor Csanyi, Dejan Savićević and Giorgos Koumas left the venue, leaving Infantino, on stage, flanked by eight empty seats. Somewhat rattled, the Fifa president repeatedly demanded more applause from the floor.
Uefa delegates had left the building, their seats empty as Gianni Infantino took the podium.
Should Infantino have to worry about European resistance? In a statement, Uefa has already relented, calling “the recent episode isolated”. Europe isn’t Infantino’s power base. Reliant on Fifa development money, plenty of other national federations will still back him. He pointed to the 13 billion dollars in revenue from the 2023-26 cycle and the upcoming Fifa summits in Miami as incentives.
Conmebol didn’t seem overly upset by Infantino’s antics. The confederation even named a tower in the Bourbon Hotel after him. The hotel previously carried a plaque with the names of South American football officials who got arrested in the FifaGate scandal. Those men overplayed their hand. How long will it take before Infantino overplays his?
